


The Promise

by KuriQuinn



Category: Naruto
Genre: Ableist Language, Alternate Universe - Historical, Bombing, Bombs, F/M, In passing?, It's culturally and historically accurate, Major Character Death is Itachi, Mentions of blood and gore, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Scars, Serious Injuries, Sort Of, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28003224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KuriQuinn/pseuds/KuriQuinn
Summary: The flash is the last thing he ever sees.What follows is a disjointed array of moments: the strange shudder all around, suffocating heat, a cracking explosion of noise and then agony.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke
Comments: 22
Kudos: 109





	The Promise

**Author's Note:**

> **Author’s Note:** So, I wrote this for the fanzine Quantum like a year ago, but then the zine didn't end up getting published, and they recently gave all us authors to go-ahead to publish our stories. The premise of the zine was AUs, and I chose to do something historical, so it's a bit different from my usual fare. It started out a lot longer because of the detailed nature of the story, but I had to cut it for the zine. Which means I have a lot of extra stuff left over and may possibly expand this later. For now, though, I hope you like it!
> 
> The amazing fanart for this piece was done by two super-talented artists: **Aishwarya** ([tumblr](https://toondoon1010.tumblr.com/) / [twitter](https://twitter.com/toondoon1010)) and **Jenny** ([tumblr](https://jennerarts.tumblr.com/) / [twitter](https://twitter.com/jenner_arts))
> 
> so please head over there and give them some love!

**1945** **年** **8** **月** **6** **日**

Sasuke doesn’t think anything of the soft hissing noise in the distance, like burning magnesium. It isn’t until the brilliant burst of pink and white fills the window that he even knows anything is wrong. 

The flash is the last thing he ever sees. 

What follows is a disjointed array of moments: the strange shudder all around, suffocating heat, a cracking explosion of noise and then agony. 

And then nothing.

He’s not sure how long that nothing lasts, but his senses eventually come back to him. First the smell of burning flesh, and then a sound like the heavens struggling to draw a wet, rattling breath. There is heat and dust all over, coating his skin, mouth and the inside of his nose. Pain sears across his face and his left arm.

He cannot see. When he tries to call out, it feels like dead leaves rustling against the inside of his throat.

Eventually the thunderous din becomes background noise to the single, familiar urging voice beside him. 

“Sasuke! Wake up! _Now_ , Sasuke!” 

“Ita…” he murmurs, dazed. He senses movement, something being fastened around his left bicep. It hurts, but not as much as when hands grab him and lift. 

“We need to get out of here,” Itachi tells him once he’s on his feet. He coughs and somehow that wet noise fills Sasuke with dread. “If we stay here, we _will_ die.”

He is barely cognizant of the painful journey away from the rubble of his home. The world spins with every step his brother makes him take, and he falters often. Eventually, Itachi must carry him. 

They arrive somewhere that clamors with activity: bodies moving, people screaming and crying, the never-ending scent of burning. 

Itachi is talking again, this time to a girl or a woman. Sasuke isn’t sure because the dust and dreck coating everyone’s voices make them deeper. He can’t discern the conversation, more the tone--shock, fear, confusion--and suddenly Itachi’s words are all too clear. 

“Promise me: you will save my brother.”

“... _Itachi_ ,” Sasuke protests, name slurring on his tongue.

Sasuke passes out before he hears her reply.

* * *

 **1945** **年** **8** **月** **13** **日**

When he emerges from days of slipping in and out of delirium, it’s to the stench of death. Sickly-sweet blood permeates the air and flies buzz about his head, itching his skin as they settle upon uncovered wounds. People murmur the _nembutsu_ in the background. 

He can’t see.

“Oh! You’re awake!”

Coarse cloth scrapes against his face. Something that smells of hydrogen peroxide touches his face, burning against his raw skin. He hisses and jerks away, awakening the bone-deep ache in his left arm.

“I’m sorry, Sasuke- _kun_ , I know it hurts, but it’s necessary.” 

“Wh-who...what…?”

His words are too grating to complete. 

“My name is Haruno Sakura,” the stranger tells him, “You’re in an emergency hospital now. It’s actually--well, it _was_ a school. My school. When the blast hit, only about 20 of us survived. We’ve been helping the emergency medics as well as we can. We’re...we _were_ the only relief workers for a while.”

She talks too much and too fast. It takes him a moment to register the meaning of her words. 

“Blast?” he questions. 

“There was a bomb. Two, actually. One here, about a week ago. Then another in Nagasaki three days later. There’s...not a lot left.” Something hard and pained laces her next words. “These bombs, they aren’t like normal. They’re still killing us even though the dust has settled. So many who survived the explosion have become ill and died.” 

“My...brother…?”

“I am sorry, Sasuke- _kun_ ,” she whispers. Fingers lightly brush the back of his hand. “Just after he brought you here, he passed away.” 

It’s as if someone has shoved a knife in his gut. 

His hearing fades and his chest stings with tightness like he’s being held down underwater. Incomprehension claws at him, and it’s several long seconds before he can bring himself back to the present. 

Haruno is still talking. 

“...internal bleeding. The doctors had no extra blood for transfusion and so…” she makes a noise of regret. “It was quick. We thought you’d join him. But you lived despite your injuries.” Her voice breaks a little. “All the other patients I was responsible for died, but you...you are my miracle.” 

There is such relief and hope in her voice that Sasuke recoils. 

Her miracle is his nightmare. 

“You...foolish…” He glares in the direction he imagines her face to be. “Should’ve...let me...die…”

Then he shifts painfully on his pallet, turning his back--on her, the world and everything else--and waits for death to claim him.

* * *

 **1945** **年** **9** **月** **19** **日**

Despite his reluctance to live, Sasuke’s body stubbornly clings to life.

“Not for lack of trying,” Haruno tells him sadly when he wakes again--a month later. 

Apparently, the injury to his left arm caused sepsis and put him in a coma. They had to amputate, which explains the odd sensation below where his left elbow once was. But not—

“My eyes?”

“The doctor says the damage to them is irreversible. I’m very sorry, Sasuke- _kun_.” 

_Lame_ and _blind now._

He tries to ignore the mounting sense of terror at the thought. He’s already been brought to his lowest. He refuses to show that to this stranger. Instead, he clings to the anger that has festered in him since waking in the rubble of his home. 

“Don’t speak to me so familiarly.” 

“I don’t know what else to call you. It’s what you’re brother—”

“I am Uchiha Sasuke,” he snaps, not wanting to hear of his brother. 

“...Oh.”

There’s something in that one word that freezes him to his core. “What?”

“I heard of the Uchiha family. They used to live near the police station.”

Sasuke can barely breathe. “Used to?”

“They...the bomb detonated very close to the station. Everything that was there is gone.” 

It’s as if the explosion has stolen his breath all over again. **  
**

* * *

 **1945** **年** **12** **月** **25** **日**

The existence Sasuke finds himself in now is utterly foreign. His country has surrendered, and the world’s powers are signing for peace. He resides in a sanitorium, consigned to a life as a terminal invalid, nothing but a burden to the people forced to care for him. 

Nightmares plague him every night. An explosion of light, and the wet rattle of Itachi’s breath vanishing in the background of the explosion. 

Haruno Sakura continues to visit him, either out of a sense of duty or pity. 

He has lost not only his arm, his sight, and his family, but also his future. There is nothing left of his dream to become a police officer. He can only hope that death was quicker for his uncles and aunts and cousins that it will be for him.

Unless he does it himself. 

One evening he gets his hands on a knife—nothing so dignified as the ceremonial _tanto_ his father kept, but a knife is a knife. He’s just about to shove the blade into his gut when it goes flying; a second later, a pulsing pain radiates across his cheek, jarring the very bones in his face.

“How dare you!” 

Haruno is there somehow, and her rage is as tangible as the hand she used to slap him, incongruous with her usual bright demeanor. 

“How dare you try to throw your life away when—” She swallows. “How dare you be so _selfish!_ ”

“How is ridding the world of a burden selfish?” he wants to know. 

“I made a promise to your brother that you would live.”

Sasuke pauses then, the words jogging a memory. Vague sights and sounds from that horrible day, and Itachi talking to Haruno, asking her—no, _making_ her take responsibility for Sasuke.

“You might not care about your own life, but you could at least have the decency not to make me a liar,” she rages. “And if I don’t matter to you even in some corner of your heart, your brother’s sacrifice should. His final moments were spent trying to save _you_.”

He imagines Itachi, frowning at him.

_“Foolish little brother…”_

The fight goes out of Sasuke.

Fingers clasp his hand. They’re sticky and wet, accompanied by the metallic scent of blood in the air.

In stopping him, she injured herself. 

“Promise me,” she whispers, but the command is as heavy as a bellow. “Promise me you won’t do yourself harm. That you’ll try to survive. I…you need to survive.”

Her words stretched and nasal in her pain.

This bothers him for some reason. It’s the first thing to bother him on a personal level since he lost everything.

Even swamped in his own grief, Sasuke has still been observant all these months. Sight or not, he has witnessed how Haruno is one of the few nurses’ assistants that has kept hope throughout all of this. She has not let the horrors of their circumstances turn her cold or hopeless when even his actual doctors and nurses have become emotionless and resigned to their patients’ inevitable deaths.

Haruno Sakura stands out against all that.

Perhaps that’s why he responds with a quiet, “I promise.”

* * *

 **1946** **年** **3** **月** **28** **日**

Over the course of the next few months, Sasuke learns to function around his ever-healing injuries. He adjusts to the maximum range of his senses, how far he can hear and touch. 

It comes in handy when he needs to throw something at his roommate, an American former POW that was at Saiwai-cho. He was transferred here after pitching in to help survivors in Nagasaki, despite technically being an enemy soldier…and a captive. Eventually, he’ll be sent back to the United States once the terms of his release are negotiated, but until then Sasuke is stuck sharing a room with a man that has the common sense of fish paste.

Because of this, Sasuke calls him ‘Naruto’, which always makes Sakura laugh.

And that’s another sense he’s gotten used to. Awareness with no name that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. It only happens when she is nearby, which is often given her almost daily visits.

He wonders if that is her way of checking up on him, to see if he is keeping his promise. Her determination about the matter makes no sense to him.

One day, she is late. 

When she does arrive, it is without the usual bounce in her step, and her voice trembles when she says his name.

She’s been crying. 

Sasuke is shocked by this because he has never heard her cry before. Not the day of the blast or in the aftermath. 

“Sakura,” he says. “Who injured you?”

There’s a sharp inhale of surprise, and then she murmurs. “It’s not...no one injured me. It’s just…” She chokes back a sob. “It’s my birthday today. The first one since…”

She doesn’t need to finish the sentence, he knows what she means. The first birthday since her parents died. 

Sasuke was not the only one who lost his entire family. 

Not knowing what else to do he swallows down his own discomfort and reaches out, wrapping his right arm gingerly around her shoulder. 

They sit like that until Naruto returns.

* * *

 **1946** **年** **6** **月** **9** **日**

When Sasuke is finally permitted to leave the sanitorium, Sakura is there to lead him out.

He is unsure where she intends to bring him, he has no family left and no home, but by now trusts her enough not to question her. 

The sun-warmed breeze is gentle on his face and stiff grass crunches beneath his feet. The journey is strange, the terrain flatter than he remembers. Even if he weren’t blind, he would be lost. 

They end up somewhere far from the sounds of people rebuilding their lives, and then Sakura is taking his hand and guiding it forward. 

He wants to complain, but when she presses his fingers against something large and solid, he pauses. Stone of some sort.

He doesn’t know what she’s trying to show him--is tired, irritated by his blindness and uneasy about the future.

But as she slowly helps him trace the grooves that have been etched into the stone, he recognizes characters beneath the pads of his fingers. After several passes of his fingertips, he can make out the name. 

_Itachi._

“They were going to throw him into one of the mass graves,” she explains quietly. “I didn’t want him to end up that way, not when...not when he had done what he did to save you. You had stabilized by then, and so I found a cart and I brought him here. It took all night, but I made sure he was safely buried.” 

Sasuke’s mouth is dry. 

“I know it’s not ideal,” she admits. “But one day when you’re ready, you can have him cremated properly.”

“Sakura…” he doesn’t even know what to say to this. Tears prickle in his useless eyes, and he shuts them tight. Sensing her turn toward him, he finally manages, “Thank you.”

[ art by [@jennerarts](https://tmblr.co/m1L9_zDqt0UlUs7IBlWYUBw)]

* * *

 **1946** **年** **8** **月** **6** **日**

Sasuke shares a house with Kakashi Hatake, a man who was once friends with Itachi and Sasuke’s cousin Obito. He came back from the front to discover family, friends, and the woman he loved gone in the explosion. When he learned of Sasuke’s condition, he asked him to live with him.

Sasuke would have declined—he continues to believe himself a burden, like most _hibakusha_ \--survivors of the bomb. 

In the end, Sakura convinced him otherwise. At least he manages to make himself of use here, tending to the garden and acting as caretaker for the house. Kakashi is away often enough that Sasuke can have a measure of independence. 

Today, Sakura wanders up to the house, bringing the mail with her. Most of it is for Kakashi, who receives a pension from the government, but every few weeks Sasuke receives a letter from Naruto. 

Before returning to America, the loudmouthed fool declared them friends and promised to write him, failing to see the lack of logic in that. He refused to be put off by the fact Sasuke is both unwilling and unable to write back. Sakura is apparently in league with Naruto because she’s the one who reads his missives out loud.

(He has a sneaking suspicion she writes down his verbal retorts and sends them to Naruto, thus perpetuating the foolish cycle of correspondence.) 

“Oh, Sasuke- _kun_! Listen to this!” Sakura gushes after sitting down on the veranda to narrate. Sasuke pulls weeds in the meager garden, pretending he isn’t listening. “Naruto met a girl! He says she’s Japanese, too.”

Sasuke makes a face, dubious at the idea of the _usarutonkachi_ attracting a woman’s attention. 

“‘ _Her name is Hinata’,_ ” Sakura reads, “‘ _and I’m pretty sure she’s ‘the One’. She can eat more ramen than I can!_ ’”

“Not possible,” Sasuke interjects. 

“It could be,” she replies fairly, and goes on, “‘ _As soon as I’ve saved up enough for a house, I’m going to ask her to marry me. Which got me thinking: maybe once everything dies down, you should come to the States._ ’” Her tone wavers a moment, causing Sasuke’s ears to perk up, but she quickly continues. “ _‘I’m sure Hinata would love to have someone to talk to from back home’. I can probably get you a decent job here, and you could stay with my family until you get on your feet. Think about it, and if you do, you should…”_ Sakura pauses here, clears her throat, and adds faintly, “ _...bring Sakura-chan with you._ ’” 

Paper rustles, the sound of it being smoothed out. 

“He has a strange sense of humor,” she says lightly.

“He has no common sense,” Sasuke dismisses. “The idea of my finding a job…”

He doesn’t want to leave the place where his family has lived for generations. People might call him a fool for this--it’s not as if he has any use or value in this place--but Hiroshima is the last connection he has to those he’s lost.

“You could,” she argues. “Your scars have all healed. And you’ve come so far in the past year, you’re just as useful with one arm as two. I’m sure there would be opportunities for you, especially if Naruto spoke on your behalf. It’s not like…”

She trails off.

“It’s not like what?”

“Nothing,” Sakura says quickly. “I just think you should consider it.” 

“There’s something,” he counters. “I hear it in your voice.” 

Sakura is quiet a long while, the silence hanging uncomfortably between them until Sasuke almost tells her to forget it. Then, 

“It’s not like me,” she admits at last. Her strained smile is as audible to him as the waver in her words.

“What do you mean?” 

Again there is a heavy pause, but then slim fingers wrap around his wrist, startling him. He wants to ask what she’s doing, but the words shrivel and die as she guides his fingers to her face.

And he understands. 

Raised patches of skin slash across her face, their texture intimately familiar to him. He, too, has keloid scars, across the stump of his arm. Permanent remnants of that day. 

The marks crisscross her forehead, trailing downward across her cheeks like tears. He follows the raised markings beneath her chin, noting the odd way they cross again at the base of her throat and continue downward. 

He wonders how far down the scarring progresses before he pulls his hand away lest he tries to find out. 

Sakura’s, though--he hadn’t realized. 

She’s as visibly _hibakusha_ as he is.

 _She never mentioned being injured that day. And._.. _I never asked._

“I’ll never be a doctor,” she murmurs, and her cheeks are now wet beneath his fingers. “Even if some hospital were to take me, I’m so hideous now I’d scare any patient I tried to help.” 

“You could never be hideous,” Sasuke ‘s mouth says without his permissions. 

She startles at that, skin grow warm. “Sasuke- _kun_ …?”

He pulls away, embarrassed and looks away. “It doesn’t matter how you look. You’re strong. And determined. And you saved me, even though I didn’t deserve it.” 

“I had to,” she whispers. “I couldn’t help everyone. _No one_ could help everyone. But your brother, the way he looked at me, the way he spoke--it was like he _knew_ without a doubt I would keep you alive. That made me sure I could help you. And if I could help one person in all that hell, then I could make it through everything else. No matter the cost, if you lived, it didn’t matter how horrible everything else became. I would make it through. That day, and then the next and every day after. You were my tether. _You_ kept me going.”

Sasuke blinks at that, trying to parse the incongruous words. 

“Then I guess we both owe him,” he says at last. “Because I spent the last year believing you were _my_ tether.”

[art by [@toondoon1010](https://tmblr.co/m9u0epzIgVbyPgE9PPQYeoA)]

**Author's Note:**

> I want to know what you think of my story! Leave kudos, a comment or if writing comments isn’t something you’re comfortable with, as many of these (or other emojis) as you want and let me know how you feel!
> 
> ❤️️ = I love this story!  
> 😳 = this was hot!  
> 💐 = thank you for sharing this  
> 🍵 = tea spilled  
> 🍬 = so sweet and fluffy!  
> 🚔 = you’re under arrest! the writing’s too good!  
> 😲 = I NEED THE NEXT CHAPTER  
> 😢 = you got me right in the feels  
> 🤯mind blown  
> 🤬god damn cliffhanger  
> 😫 whyyyyyyy?!?!?
> 
> 栗


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